


Next Steps

by ficdirectory



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2020-01-04 06:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18337748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficdirectory/pseuds/ficdirectory
Summary: April and Jackson lean on each other in the aftermath of the shooting in 6x23 and 6x24.





	Next Steps

April never really thought about it much before…the fact that Reed had George O'Malley’s locker.   
  
He was in their resident class - Dr. Grey, Dr. Yang, Dr. Karev - and somebody else that Reed always called “cancer wife”. He was also kind of a legend here. He was the resident responsible for heart in an elevator. He died saving a woman’s life. George O'Malley got hit by a bus last year.

For a person who believed in signs, April had missed an awfully big one.

The place she shared with Reed felt so empty it made April ache. She packed Reed’s things for her family, because no one’s family should have to do that, on top of finding out that their child died. For a while, April was on auto-pilot. Until she realized there was no way she could sleep there.

There was a moment of total panic. Even though she heard that Dr. Bailey had gone home to be with her parents, April never wanted to go back to the farm. That meant defeat. It meant she wasn’t capable of making it out in the real world. That she would always be the ugly duckling. The outcast nobody wanted. Her family loved her, April had no doubt about that. They just didn’t like her very much.

There was the phone call, of course. Her mom had called and praised God with her that she was alive, but how could April tell her that she was not feeling grateful? How could April tell that all she heard in her mother’s faith-based reassurances were cliches?

She couldn’t.

It wouldn’t have been right.

So, she listened. She gave her mom what her mom seemed to need. An opportunity to revel in April’s survival. April just barely managed to convince her mom not to come to Seattle and see her. Not to send April a plane ticket home.

She needed to be around people who understood what it was like to have a gun to your head, to trust your instincts, and still to come out of a situation feeling like fate had more of a hand in things than God.

If God was the reason she survived, did that also make Him the reason Reed died? And Charles? Was God the reason Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Karev and Dr. Hunt got shot? And not to mention every other person who died, or was shot, or like her, was uninjured, but moved in the world differently now, because absolutely nothing felt safe…

So, no, it wasn’t right to take her mom’s hope in Jesus away. But it wasn’t right for April to put everything down to God. God gave human beings free will. And that had to be a factor. Otherwise April couldn’t bear it.

For a while, she drove around, until she ended up in the parking lot outside her apartment. It was then that she remembered, she wasn’t the only one in the building who lost a best friend. Who was grieving. Who would not want to stay there one more moment than they had to, but April wasn’t sure if he was actually home.

Jackson and Dr. Yang had spent hours operating on Dr. Shepherd. April had sat on the floor like they were told to, outside the OR. She heard just enough before the doors closed behind Dr. Hunt to know that the gunman had found them in there. April had stayed down and done everything she could to keep Dr. Grey down, too, but she wouldn’t stay there. So April hid, alone and terrified, until everything was over and someone from the SWAT team rescued her.

By now, hours had passed, and April still couldn’t stop shaking.

Slowly, she got out of the car and went to the doors of the building. Only then did she realize that she had only taken her car keys and not her purse which had the card that admitted her into the building. Without that, she was stuck outside.

Praying, she punched some numbers in the panel. It took a while, but eventually, Jackson picked up.

“Hello,” he asked, sounding a little wary.

“Hey…” she said back.

“April?”

“Yeah… Jackson, I can’t sleep here. Will you come with me?”

“Yeah…of course…” he managed, and hung up.

–

The last person Jackson expected to hear from on that awful night, was April. Charles’ family had arrived and were all over the apartment, crying. Jackson needed to get out of there.

That’s how he ended up in April’s car, on their way somewhere else. Anywhere else. Anywhere that wasn’t an apartment that was both too empty and too full. His mom had called, frantic, and he’d assured her he was fine, leaving out the part that included him being held at gunpoint.

She didn’t need to know about that.

When they arrived at the door, knocking, and no one answered. Shepherd was in the hospital recovering, and so was Karev. Grey wasn’t about to leave Shepherd.

Lexie opened the door after a long time.

“Hey. Come in,” she invited. There was something about her eyes that made Jackson nervous. They were darting.

The TV was on. News of the shooting was on, and they were showing pictures of the dead.

Reed and Charles.

Charles.

April put her hand over her mouth and choked back a sob, while Lexie watched with rapt attention.

Jackson sat with his head in his hands,

–

Dr. Yang showed up once it got dark. With Dr. Hunt still in the hospital, she seemed nervous to sleep alone. And with so many of them gone, it made sense to be as together as they could be. Lexie commandeered Dr. Grey’s bed, since she was family, and invited April and Dr. Yang to sleep there if they wanted to.

It didn’t take April long to realize that none of them were going to sleep. Jackson didn’t even come into the bedroom.

Lexie was the first one up, about five minutes after they lay down. April stayed where she was and tried to pretend she didn’t hear Dr. Yang crying quietly next to her. April didn’t ask her what happened, because no one wanted to talk about it.

April didn’t want to talk about how every time she blinked she saw Reed on the floor in all the blood…or Dr. Shepherd getting shot in front of her…or the gun on April herself as she struggled to talk her way out.

The dark and the quiet was too much for her, so eventually, April got up, too. She tripped over Jackson, who was sitting on the other side of their closed door, golf club in his hand.

April jumped back. “What are you doing?”

“What do you  _think_? I’m the only man in a house full of women. Somebody needs to stay up. Make sure everything’s okay.”

Her heartbeat started to slow, and gone were the thoughts she had of cooking until the sun came up. Instead, she sank down beside Jackson and threaded her fingers through his.

“I’ll wait with you,” she said.

–

April fell asleep in twenty minutes, slumped awkwardly against him. It was sweet of her to offer to wait up with him, but it wasn’t her responsibility. He was used to being the man of the house and looking out for his mom.

His phone vibrated and April jerked awake.

Jackson scowled at his phone. “Sorry. Just my mom…” he reassured and April settled back down, this time with her head in his lap.

“Hello?” he whispered, trying not to be irritated.

“Baby, are you sure you don’t want me to come out there?” his mother asked. She sounded tearful, which was so rare that it cut short the tirade he was planning about just how much he wanted her to leave him alone.

“I’m fine, Mom.”

….But he  _did_  sort of want her here. How could he admit that at 28 years old, he still wanted her to be here? Still needed her? He wasn’t supposed to need her anymore. He was supposed to  _be_  needed.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“I will.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry about your friend…”

“Yeah…I am, too…” Jackson managed, leaning back against the door and closing his eyes.

The next thing Jackson knew, his throat was raw, and April was shaking his shoulders. He’d been back there, he was sure. Running from that guy with the gun…searching for Charles in the maze of hallways and bodies. Never finding him.

Jackson blinked, but he still couldn’t shake the adrenaline he felt, or the way his heart raced in his chest. It took a few seconds for him to be able to focus on April. To even hear what she was saying.

“…It’s April. Jackson, it’s just me…”

He blinked again, and finally he could see her. Her eyes were wide and scared. He hoped he didn’t cause it. But instead of waiting around to see, Jackson got up and went to the kitchen for some water.

The TV was still on. Lexie was parked in front of it. Jackson scowled. “Will you turn that off?”

“Yeah, in a minute…” Lexie answered, waving him off.

He hated this whole damn house. But he had nowhere else to go.

–

The funerals were the worst thing April had ever done. As a Christian, she always had hope in an eternity with Jesus. Because of that, she had always thought she wouldn’t be afraid to die. But she was. Because she’d seen exactly what Gary Clark was capable of, when she found Reed and when she saw him shoot Dr. Shepherd.

She knew there was a lot to fear, despite the praise songs she used to sing that told her the Lord was her light and her salvation so she should fear no one.

Death was final. There were no second chances. There was no coming back. And the funerals were just an extension of that finality. April sat at Reed’s funeral, feeling out of place. She didn’t fit in with the family or Reeds’s friends from home. And Reed hadn’t really met a whole lot of people except for their coworkers from Mercy West. And now April and Jackson were all that was left.

He stood beside her, swallowing. Stoic. She tried to hold his hand, but he pulled away.

–

Jackson pulled at the tie around his neck, because it was easier to focus on that than to focus on the fact that today, they were burying his best friend. All around him, people were talking in hushed tones about how “this didn’t have to happen,” because Charles wasn’t caught unaware, like Reed.

He was shot and survived for hours, with Bailey and their patient. Jackson heard about the sick long trail of blood that led from the patient’s room to the bank of elevators. The elevators that had been shut down to isolate the shooter.

Yeah.

Isolate him in the OR with Yang and himself and Shepherd on the table.

Because Lexie watched the news 24/7, Jackson had caught the inane way the press memorialized his best friend and their other coworker. The surviving patient had apparently talked to the news. Told them about how she and “Dr. B” worked together and almost managed to get Charles to an OR. But with the elevators turned off, there was nothing more they could do, and apparently, one of the last things Charles said was how he had a huge crush on Reed.

Which, Jackson knew. Charles made no secret of it.

So why was the press so set on romanticizing the fact that both Charles and Reed died? Once you died, you were dead. There was no coming back. It wasn’t as if Reed ever would have run into Charles’ arms anyway. And it didn’t make Charles’ death meaningful.

There was no meaning at all in this. Survival was a crapshoot.

And Jackson was alternately in shock that he survived, euphoric at his survival and hating himself for having the thought, when Charles didn’t have a chance.

He wanted to talk to Bailey. Bad. But not so bad that he’d call her at home. She still had a reputation around Seattle Grace for being formidable, but more than that, it was knowing that Bailey knew exactly what he felt. She was held at gunpoint, just like Jackson, just like Yang, just like Lexie, just like April. It wasn’t something you discussed.

And you definitely didn’t discuss someone dying in your arms.

–

Dr. Grey came home. Then Dr. Karev, wounded and brash. Then, finally, Dr. Shepherd. Dr. Yang was still around more often than not, and Lexie was still up at all hours. If she wasn’t glued to the coverage of the shooting, she was on her laptop looking at stuff about it, or reading books about mass murders.

No one seemed to notice how she never slept. And even though April did, she had no idea what to do about it. An occasional nap during the day was not going to make up for the night’s worth of sleep Lexie was missing out on.

It made April nervous. It made her remember when she and Lexie first met and just how much Lexie disliked her. Mostly, it just reminded her how every single thing was up in the air. Everything was different now, and everyone made a point to avoid each other.

Just the sight of Dr. Yang seemed to make Jackson clumsy. Had this been last month, or last year, April might have assumed a crush, but knowing what she knew, April felt sure it was nerves. Seeing Dr. Yang reminded Jackson of that day, and vice versa. Dr. Yang couldn’t even look him in the eyes and when he came into a room, she left it just as quickly.

–

It annoyed Jackson that he came out of what he did without a scratch, and now, he was sporting bruises and scratches for no good reason. He hated being so uncoordinated, and wasn’t used to feeling so out of sync with himself. It was a small thing. He knew that. Especially compared to Shepherd’s or Karev’s injuries.

He was fine. He survived. So he shouldn’t be doing this. He was driving himself crazy doing this.

Jackson picked up the mail he’d managed to sweep off the kitchen table without even noticing. He grabbed his keys and stuck his head into the living room, to call to whoever happened to be there.

April sat alone on the couch.

“I’m going back to the apartment. I need clothes, so…”

“Let me come with you,” she insisted. “I mean, I didn’t exactly plan on living here indefinitely and I really didn’t bring enough stuff…”

The drive was quiet, and when they got there, both stayed in the car, staring at the building. “I don’t wanna go back in there…” Jackson said quietly.

“Me neither…” she admitted.

Jackson sat, clutching the steering wheel and clenching his jaw. “Well, we have to,” he breathed, and opened his door. “So, let’s just do it and get out of there. I’m sick of wearing the same three things.”

He thought he could force himself to be ready - but there was no preparing for this. For walking into a space you shared with somebody who’s no longer there. It hit him like a blow to the chest when he saw it. That for all the friends and family of Charles’ that had been there when Jackson left, none of them had touched or taken anything of his, so it was like Charles was still there. Like he had every intention of coming home that night.

–

April made quick work of going in and throwing some stuff in a bag, and then getting out of there. She wasn’t staying here one minute more than she had to. All of Reed’s things were gone, and the apartment looked so different. April stopped by the fridge, though, the thought of rotting food and having to pay damages for all the gross smells bringing her up short.

She opened it, and found that had been done, too. All that was left were non perishable food items. Diet Coke and water. And their stash of chocolate they kept cold in the spring and summer months.

April closed the fridge and her mouth fell open. The chore wheel she had made was still there. April remembered the last time they’d spun it, that third week in May. Reed had landed on Kitchen/Bathroom, while April had landed on Living Room/Bedrooms.

Suddenly, the chore wheel was swimming before April’s eyes.

The last thing they had done together was spin that stupid wheel. Had they even said goodbye that day? April so often just assumed they’d see each other later, that she didn’t always. Had she then?

Because she couldn’t face this anymore, she went up to the third floor and walked into Jackson and Charles’ apartment, as the door stood open.

She found Jackson, standing in their living room. One of Charles’ tee shirts was on an arm of the couch. His jacket was hung on a kitchen chair.

April swallowed, and approached Jackson, who was doing everything he could to keep himself together.

“You wanna go?” she asked quietly, startling him.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

But she didn’t miss how he grabbed a framed picture of the four of them, taken after their first day at Seattle Grace - her, Reed, Charles and Jackson - and turned toward the door.

“You didn’t pack anything…” she objected.

“I don’t need anything else…” he said, his voice hoarse.

–

That night, Jackson took the picture out of the frame and studied it. Seemed like just yesterday they’d all been together. They’d all done that. Gone out for a drink at Joe’s. Like they thought there’d be plenty more opportunities.

Now this. Now he and April were all that was left.

He found her in the kitchen, making eggs and bacon. “Can I help?”

“I didn’t know you cooked?”

“I don’t,” he allowed. “But I can manage this.”

And they moved carefully around one another, but stayed in the same space - hoping that maybe their proximity could start to fill the emptiness they both felt inside.


End file.
